NCAA flatly rejects Trojans’ appeal

Friday

May 27, 2011 at 12:01 AMMay 27, 2011 at 12:30 PM

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Southern California acknowledges its football program committed NCAA violations while building a West Coast dynasty over the past decade. The Trojans simply believe last year’s nearly unprecedented punishment didn’t fit the crime.

The NCAA flatly rejected USC’s appeal to reduce sanctions imposed on its storied football program, keeping in place the harshest penalties leveled against a school in a quarter-century.

USC must serve the second year of its two-year postseason ban this fall, making the Trojans ineligible for the first Pac-12 title game or a bowl game. USC also will lose 30 scholarships over the next three years, giving them just 15 available scholarships per season — 10 below the normal yearly limit — until 2015.

Haden led a chorus of exasperated resignation at Heritage Hall after the NCAA’s final ruling on its punitive sanctions for a variety of misdeeds surrounding Heisman Trophy-winning tailback Reggie Bush.

“We have to look at ourselves in the mirror here,” said Haden, who took over the athletic department last July. “We could have and should have done things better. We had a player who knowingly did things wrong. We are not innocent here. We deserve some penalties, but it’s the severity of the penalties that we think are unfair.”

While disappointment spread throughout campus and in the Pac-10 offices upstate, the Trojans also expressed relief their half-decade of NCAA drama finally was over. Haden confirmed USC won’t sue the NCAA to further contest the most extensive sanctions handed out since SMU football was shut down for two years by the so-called “death penalty” in 1987.

“Clearly, I’m very disappointed, but I’m not surprised,” Haden said. “I think the appeals committee is a group of fair-minded folks. We just vehemently disagree with the result, with how they saw our argument and how past precedent didn’t play a role in their decision.”

After a brief team meeting in which Coach Lane Kiffin cautioned his players not to spout off about the decision on social media, the Trojans took the expected news in stride. Haden had predicted bad news for the players, who were years away from attending USC when Bush apparently accepted lavish illegal benefits from two aspiring sports marketers.

“Just like Pat and the rest of the university, we don’t agree, but we’ll deal with what we’re dealt,” quarterback Matt Barkley said.

BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock said in an email yesterday that the presidential oversight committee and conference commissioners will consider whether to strip USC of the 2004 BCS title it won by beating Oklahoma 55-19 in the Orange Bowl. He said there is no timetable set for that decision to come down.

“The championship would not be awarded to another team; it would simply be vacated,” he wrote.

The Associated Press will not vacate the championship it awarded USC in 2004.

Last summer, the NCAA ruled Bush and basketball player O.J. Mayo had received improper benefits under the administration of Athletic Director Mike Garrett, football Coach Pete Carroll and basketball Coach Tim Floyd, who have all left the university. In addition to the football sanctions and self-imposed sanctions on the basketball program, USC was put on four years of probation.

BUCKEYE BLACK EYE: A former Ohio State wide receiver told the school’s student newspaper that he sold Big Ten championship rings and other memorabilia for cash and got special car deals.

Ray Small, frequently benched, suspended or disciplined during an erratic career at Ohio State from 2006-2009, confirmed to The Lantern newspaper that when it came to getting improper benefits “everyone was doing it.”

He also said it was no big deal selling personal items given to the team: “We had four Big Ten rings. There was enough to go around.” He added that, despite Ohio State’s large and proactive NCAA compliance department, most of the school’s student-athletes “don’t even think about” NCAA “rules.”

Ohio State didn’t dismiss his charges but also didn’t sound as if it would try to find out any more about them.

“At this point, the university does not have enough information regarding the reported matters concerning a former student-athlete who has been gone from the football program for two years,” athletic department spokesman Dan Wallenberg said in an emailed statement.

Small was suspended for the 2010 Rose Bowl in what would have been his final game.

Five Buckeyes players are suspended for the first five games of the 2011 season for selling memorabilia to the owner of a local tattoo parlor. Athletes receiving money or other considerations not available to other students is considered an improper benefit under NCAA rules.

Coach Jim Tressel also is suspended for five games and is under investigation by the NCAA for knowing about his players’ involvement and not telling his superiors for more than nine months.

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